Category: Links

Shawn Blanc:
>There was not a lick of Apple advertising anywhere to be found. I thought for sure there would be a little Apple logo on the back of the card, where a Hallmark logo would have been, but nope. Nothing.

I’m glad Shawn ordered these and reported back. They sound like a great deal with nice little touches such as the above one.

Fantastic post by Andy Mangold on Apple’s love affair with skeuomorphism:
>Some people believe that skeuomorphism makes an interface easier to use, or more intuitive for the user, and I simply don’t buy that. But what hadn’t occurred to me is that it doesn’t matter if it actually does make it easier to use, all that matters is that it makes the average person think it’s easier to use. In reality, a user must take time to learn any interface, whether clad in faux leather or not.

Makes a lot of sense to me after reading this post.

The full content of the email that was — finally — sent out to Fusion members. You have to give him credit for publishing his cell phone number — that takes balls.

MG Siegler on the new GMail app and what it means in the larger picture:

>The faith is gone.

It’s a fantastic post about the trend he is seeing with Google — a trend I also see.

Chris Bowler on the Fusion blog:

>As of today, Fusion Ads is now under the ownership of BuySellAds.

I’ve debated most of the morning about posting this, but it really is bugging me so I decided to post about it. I didn’t find out about this until last night when Chris (no longer with Fusion) emailed me. I like Chris a lot and trust him, not true of BuySellAds because I don’t know them.

As of this writing (10:43a PT) I have yet to hear from BuySellAds — they haven’t contacted me and that doesn’t bode well for them in my book, how can we have a business relationship without communication?

I love Fusion, and the people in the network, they have all been great to me. As with any major change or buyout in the industry I am interested in how the buyer handles the purchase, so far I am not impressed.

Who do I even contact at Fusion now?

I don’t know because no one has told me, that’s not good business.

*(I post this full well knowing it may comprise my arrangement with Fusion. I post this knowing most don’t care. I post this, as with everything else, because I see something happening that I need/want to comment on.)*

**UPDATED**: There’s a bit of confusion, I was told about the sale before it happened (last night) and it was Chris who told me. My complaint is that I have yet to hear from anyone at BSA about this — still. The old Fusion told me this was happening, but the New Fusion has yet to contact me.

**UPDATED** (on Nov 3, 2011 at 13:07): I have been contacted.

Jim Dalrymple has the quote, nice of them to acknowledge this.

Moments later [Federico Viticci noted](http://www.macstories.net/news/apple-releases-ios-5-0-1-beta/) that Apple pushed iOS 5.0.1 beta to developers — here’s hoping it is a better fix than changing the bar size.

John Gruber:

>I’m not arguing that making concept videos directly leads to a lack of traction in the current market. I’m arguing that making concept videos is a sign of a company that has a lack of institutional focus on the present and near-present.

The two big companies producing ‘Future Concept Videos’ right now are Microsoft and RIM — both companies have failed to create new innovative products in the last few years and are, arguably, suffering because of it.

Microsoft is too big, unfocused, and lacking in leadership to put on a new pair of pants. RIM has seemingly just stuck their heads in the sand and are hoping for the best — at least at the `C` level positions.

I personally have no problem with these types of concept videos, because I see them very much in the same light as I see concept cars. The idea is that you push forward some radical things to get people talking about it and then you use these ideas as guidance moving forward. That works well for companies that execute on these plans, like Aston Martin or BMW. Both having pushed out radical concept cars that then ended up seeing the light of day a couple of years later with only minor changes. ((The Aston Martin Rapide for example.))

Here, with Microsoft and RIM, they are fully admitting this is fantasy, instead of admitting this is a direction they are pursuing. That’s the problem I have with these videos: fantasy.

Fantasy is fine in the movies, but for a company you need to have goals. What goal does Microsoft have for the Kinect?

Eliot Van Buskirk writes that the app called ‘gMusic’ (allowing you to play Amazon cloud stored music on the iPhone) was pulled from iTunes. The reason cited was: “legal issues with the music industry.”

I am not sure if Buskirk intentionally is trying to say that competition is partly to blame for the app getting pulled, or not, but it certainly sounds like that is what he is implying.

>However, separating music clouds from their mega-sized motherships turns them into commodities. If you can use all three of these music clouds with the same phone just by tapping a different app, you’re unlikely to develop an exclusive reliance on one or the other, which is what each of these companies hopes will happen […]

The assumption being that Apple wants everyone using iTunes Match and not Google or Amazon for cloud storage.

If that was the case I doubt Apple would have even approved these apps. My guess is that there really were legal issues — one reason it took Apple so long to get in the music stored in the cloud business, and still won’t offer streaming, is the inane restrictions labels impose.